Robert Loraine Movies
- 1935
G.K. Chesterton's crime-solving cleric Father Brown was first brought to the screen in 1934, in the corpulent form of Walter Connolly. The good father spends most of the film trying to retrieve a valuable diamond cross from elusive thief Flambeau (Paul Lukas). Father Brown is convinced that Flambeau is eminently redeemable, but the double-crossing thief hardly proves to be a prime candidate for salvation. Amazingly, Father Brown's faith in Flambeau's essential decency proves well-founded, but it's certainly touch-and-go for a while. Long unavailable for reappraisal, 1934's Father Brown, Detective has been eclipsed by the popularity of the 1954 Alec Guinness remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Connolly, Paul Lukas, (more)
- 1934
It's "Never the twain shall meet" time again, this time in London's Limehouse district. George Raft stars as Harry Young, a half-caste saloonkeeper who shelters beleaguered white girl Toni (Jean Parker) from her tormentors (shades of Broken Blossoms). Harry falls in love with the girl, but mixing of the races was still a Hollywood no-no in 1934, so tragedy results -- except for Toni, who finds happiness in the arms of Eric Benton (Kent Taylor), a man of "her own kind." The highly eclectic cast includes Anna May Wong as Raft's obligatory cast-off sweetheart Tu Tuan, former 2-reel comic Billy Bevan, and in a tiny uncredited role, Ann Sheridan. To avoid confusion with another Limehouse Blues, this one was retitled East End Chant for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Jean Parker, (more)
- 1934
Outcast Lady is a heavily censored version of Michael Arlen's once-notorious novel The Green Hat, previously filmed by Greta Garbo as A Woman of Affairs. Constance Bennett is Iris March, a woman cursed by her beauty, doomed to drive everyone around her -- including herself -- to destruction. When her new husband Boy Fenwick (Ralph Forbes) commits suicide on their wedding night, Iris, who's been unfaithful to him, is held responsible, especially when the reason for Fenwick's demise is kept a secret by his snobbish family (He had contacted syphilis in the Arlen original; in the film, he fears exposure of a previous prison term). Realizing that she has brought nothing but sorrow to the Fenwick family, Iris nobly steps into her fashionable touring car and smashes it into a tree. Oddly enough, Iris' death is amusing in retrospect, inasmuch as Constance Bennett would suffer a similar demise at the beginning of 1937's Topper, thereby allowing her to cavort through the rest of the picture as a ghost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Bennett, Herbert Marshall, (more)
Movie newcomer Ketti Gallian plays Marie Gallante, who is abducted by a most ungallant drunken sea captain. He leaves her stranded in Yucatan, where she gets a job as a cafe singer in hopes of paying her way to the Panama Canal zone. While en route, she meets the two-fisted Crawbett (Spencer Tracy), who unlike most of the other men she's encountered believes the kidnapping story. Crawbett, a secret agent, comes to Marie's rescue when she gets inadvertently mixed up in a plot to sabotage the Canal. His job done, Crawbett decides to stick around in Panama for a while when he falls in love with Marie. Based on a novel by Jacques Devel, Marie Gallante was intended to make a star out of Ketti Gallian, but it was the reliable Spencer Tracy who attracted the crowds and earned the critical plaudits. Elements of the film's plotline would later resurface in the 1940 programmer Charlie Chan in Panama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Ketti Gallian, (more)
- 1931
In this British murder mystery, a host is murdered just before a gala dinner party at his country estate. The killers are revealed immediately though it seems they have committed the perfect crime by making it appears as if the host killed himself. This is discovered by a suspicious young couple. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Loraine, Dorothy Boyd, (more)
- 1930
A.A. Milne's The Fourth Wall was the source for this early British talkie. During a weekend party at the country estate of Arthur Hilton (C. Aubrey Smith), the host is impolitely murdered by his guest Carter (Robert Lorraine) and Carter's henchman Laverick (Warwick Ward). The killing is carried out with such cunning that the other guests can provide both Carter and Laverick with air-tight alibis. Just at the point when the police are about to write off Hilton's death as a suicide, romantic leads Jimmy (Frank Lawton) and Mollie (Dorothy Boyd) stumble upon the "one fatal slip" made by the two clever murderers. Originally released at 98 minutes, Birds of Prey was distributed in the U.S. by RKO in a 78-minute version, retitled The Perfect Alibi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Loraine, Warwick Ward, (more)
